Third Sunday

Another good day, except it rained quite spectacularly during the afternoon. This post is late and short because I've been writing about half of the spoof edition of the Newsletter that has a limited circulation tomorrow, and I'm a touch weary.

We got the Beale Park Bugle printed, folded and circulated with great despatch in the afternoon, and in the evening we saw the Parade of Illuminated Boats enter the lake at around ten pm.

They were very impressive, as far as the illuminations went, but the boat handling presented some serious challenges in the dark.

I've not got much more to say here; I'm going to take a break from blogging for a few days, then resume the Living in Sanity Again blog in due course. I may well just tweet for a bit, until we are settled back into our boating routine.

Doing the Newsletter hass been an interesting experience for us; we're going to give it another go next year in Burton on Trent.

Third Saturday

Yesterday saw the Show open on time, despite the usual last minute panics. I haven’t got any figures for the first day’s entry, but the ground looked nicely full, given that it’s one of the larger show fields that we use.

In between going to the BW Q&A session and getting the Sunday edition ready for bed, there was time to wander round a bit, and to meet up with John and Nev Campbell at lunch time.

The final touches to Sunday were delayed by the need to get an account of the Opening Ceremony in, so it was ten to three, rather than half two, before the first copied emerged. Kevin used both printers, however, as the one normally kept for short jobs has much less demand on it when the Show is actually open.

We had less help with the folding at first, but later on, a team of experienced wrgies was recruited and things went faster. In addition, we’d agreed to insert a flyer about next year’s events, which slows things down considerably.

However, it was all done in the end, and by half five, all the copies were at their distribution centres. We’d printed and folded 1270 of them in a two and a half hours.

We’re starting to feel more relaxed about things now; just one more serious issue to get out, and that’s pretty well ready for press now.

This boat is for sale

The WRG bit of the IWA display

Eagle Owl on the Raptors stand

"Knights of the Crusade" base in the Arena

Thames Barge manoeuvring

Second Friday

It's getting quite hard to keep going with this blog, as the fatigue builds, and a load of other stuff clamours for attention. The weather has improved, and we managed to get Sanity Again looking good in time for the judge's visit for the Marion Monk Award.

The wrgies worked amazingly hard yesterday, rising to the challenge as they always do. Mitch’s leadership has been very sure footed,but they still had to slog on until very late, eating lunch and dinner in shifts, and not finishing until after dark.

Elanor worked through until 10 last night, booking in late arrivals, and trying to sort out who should get the red WRG T-shirts.

Meanwhile, people continue to be kind about our efforts with the Newsletter, but we are beginning to get complaints from those who left it too late to seek an entry about their meeting or event.

Unfortunately, one of the groups who has had to be turned down will be judging us for the Cressy Award at 11 today, so we just have to hope they won’t let their irritation affect their judgement...

Bungle came round at 9.45 last night, the first time he could get away, and after playing with it a bit here, took the MiFi away to flash a firmware upgrade to it and to reset the password. What a star that man is, a Red Giant in fact.

Food Traders started

The Lavender Boat on its way out

(it provides refuse and Elsan disposal to the moored boats)

Helping to offload clothing at the Regatta stand

Inside Hall A

A weary wrgie

Don't know what it's for, but it looks fun

Second Thursday

A short blog today; we’re being judged for the Marion Monk Trophy for the best private boat at the Show at ten, and Sheila and Elanor are busy putting the finishing touches to our boat cleaning whilst I write this.

Yesterday was wet again, and the site became soft in places. There’s still a heavy restriction on vehicle movement, so as the traders arrived, their vehicles were brought as close as possible to their stand without cutting up the ground. Then WRG teams carried (“handballed”) their stuff to the stand. They did 20 such yesterday; only another 120 to do today.

Fortunately, the forecast is for a slow improvement from here on in, with really good weather on Monday, but it rained quite hard overnight, so everything is still soggy.

The Beale Park Bugle is being well received, which is a huge relief. There seem to be a few glitches in the distribution system, inevitably; we will probably have sorted them by Tuesday.

We'd used KESCRG's marquee as our field kitchen, and now it had to be moved to become their Appealing Food stall in the Show. No need to take it down, if you have enough wrgies!

Entry to the Camp Site, showing the developing problem with access

Second Wednesday

The weather broke yesterday with a vengeance, with torrential rain at times, and just steady rain for the remainder. Vehicle movement on site was severely restricted; since the hope is that the forecast dry period will turn up tomorrow, if only the team can keep the surface from breaking up too much, it will dry out again to be comfortable for the Festival visitors over the weekend.

It didn’t matter too much to us in the morning, as we were tucked up on the boat putting the final touches to the Thursday edition of the Beale Park Bugle, and progressing Friday’s nicely, but in the afternoon, when the downpour was at its worst, I had to sort out the print run.

This entailed going over to Admin village with a memory stick, from which Kevin printed 950 copies of Thursday, and one of Friday for submission to our Director, Gillian. (I must record that as far as that goes, my fears have proved to be totally unfounded; she’s being very reasonable about leaving us to do what we do, with helpful suggestions and the odd comment.)

Once printed, the copies needed to be taken to the WRG compound, a walk of around five minutes, for folding and sorting into bundles. We have one of those heavy duty reusable Sainsbury’s shopping bags, which happily holds up to 1000 sheets of A3, so I used that, making two trips, partly to spare my back, and partly so that the folders had something to be getting on with.

They arrived almost intact, with just a bit of damp on the edges on a few, well within the deliberate overprint numbers.

Earlier in the day, Bungle had arranged for a folding machine to collected from the guy who looks after the post processing of the Navvies newsletter which is WRG’s main organ of communication. The hope was that it would arrive in time for yesterday’s folding, but it was not to be, so we hand folded the lot, with help from Roger and Margaret who are the signs finishing team and weren't busy. We finished just after half four, with almost all copies delivered to their distribution centres like the Waterspace and Campsite Offices by five.

We then retreated to the boat for a quiet hour’s collapse, before attending the Chinese meal which is the Blue Shirts traditional get together on the Wednesday before the Festival.

Wednesday is also the day when the exhibitor's boats are craned into position:

Trombo wagons waiting with their loads

The first one goes in

Others arrived under their own steam

The Historic Wharf is nearly finished

A team of Blue Shirt ladies make the lunchtime sandwiches

Despite the weather, the marquee guuys work steadily on, here erecting the Bandstand

Second Tuesday

Yesterday was another day given over to working on the Newsletters, though we took opportunities to get out and about when we could. The good news was that the latest strategy for printing the thing worked; I took a memory stick with the copy on it as a PDF of two A3 sides, and Kevin the Comms genius printed it on the duplex printer, resulting in a perfect reproduction.

Sighs of relief all round.

More pictures were taken, and information slowly acquired to fill in the articles we’ve already drafted.

The site team were cheered by the weather, which was dry and windy, and the ground has returned to a useable state. By being firm about not allowing wheeled traffic on site, it’s remained grass covered and good looking.

Elanor has been working hard as WRG administrator, though her job will, hopefully, get easier from now, as most folk have arrived Much of her work now consists of generating lists and numbers from her spreadsheets, such as those needed by the cook for food purchasing, and the list of those staying in the compound, which goes over to Admin every afternoon in case of fire overnight.

Yesterday evening was the Cheese and Wine party, when the Blue Shirts from the various Festival teams get together with the Red Shirts of the wrgies. As usual, it went very well, and even the obligatory talk by the ECO (Emergency Control Officer) about emergency procedures didn’t take too long.

The site is now becoming recognisable as a show Ground, with most of the marquees up, and the electrical contractors positioning generators and stringing cable. The WRG teams will be kept busy burying them (the cables, that is) for the next couple of days.

Fastening down the gazebo outside the WRG eating marquee, to stop it blowing away

WRG Admin takes a break from the laptop to help peel onions

Conferences on the go

The Show Field fills up

Second Monday

Apart from anxiety about where my 3 data allowance has gone, yesterday went well, generally. Lots more work was done on the Newsletters; Thursday’s is pretty well all done, and Friday well on the way. The remaining ones have most of the stuff that we can pre-prepare done; other material can’t be written until the relevant events have occurred.

The printing problem is nearly resolved – we were presented with an A3 version of the Thursday edition last night. It still has a couple of problems, as in the image sizes have been reduced, so that there’s a huge margin round the outside of the text, and one side was upside down, but we’re getting there.

Essentially, the guys up at Admin village would really like me to be using MS Publisher, because that’s all they know, and providing the documents in such rare formats as PDF or a Postscript file is giving them trouble. Hey ho, it’s their problem, not ours.

I had a conversation with Bungle last night about the disappearing data allowance. As a systems development engineer with Vodafone, he’s a fount of wisdom on the subject, and immediately agreed that we must have been hacked by someone freeloading on our connection.

Since it shows on the WiFi list as “3Wireless-modem-xxxx” where the x’s stand for digits, whoever it was probably didn’t know it was a fellow boater – perhaps. In any event, they must have used password cracking software to get in, and if you are reading this, you’re going to cost me £15, since when the last of my 3 allowance is gone, I shall have to buy a month’s supply on my O2 PAYG dongle.

I don’t know what anyone else thinks, but in my book, this is theft, just as if someone had reached into my boat and helped themselves to a can of diesel. What really hurts is that the limited range of the MiFi dongle, used inside a boat, means that the culprit must be a fellow BOD boater.

Ever generous, Bungle has offered to come over later on and help me reprogram the 3 dongle to use a more obvious name for the connection, like Bruce’s Hotspot, and a more secure password.

On a more cheerful note, here are some photos of progress building the site.

Inside Hall A

The crane at the Historic Wharf

Touch of Pink Floyd; painting another brick in the wall

The BOD boats moorings